D.C. Sports Bog: December 14, 2008 - December 20, 2008

There were around 30,000 red-faced folks inside RFK Stadium today, and they had all sorts of reasons for being there. Some had family members on the field. Some were alums. Some were being paid. (Guilty.) But the best reason for attending an 11 a.m. game between teams with a...

Wake Forest's pre-game walkthrough at RFK Stadium was canceled this morning. So was Navy's pre-game pep rally at the Navy Memorial this afternoon. No worries, though. "I will commit to this: It will be football weather," promised Mayor Adrian Fenty, after calling Jim Grobe "Jim Grobee." And the festivities...

Sports producer Lindsay Applebaum: As I mentioned earlier today, it's been a really bad week (the worst ever) for people who are emotionally invested in the Washington Redskins. The good news is that fans are coping with their misery by doing irrational and hilarious things and recording them on video...

There might be nothing in the world I like more than mascots. I have a problem, I think. I mean, the choices were taking photos of the mascots making funny poses or listening to the speeches during today's pre-game EagleBank bowl extravaganza at yet another downtown hotel. Tim Brandt,...

(By Toni L. Sandys - TWP) Sports producer Lindsay Applebaum here with a new feature, the name of which I have shamelessly ripped off from a) Vh1's Best Week Ever, b) The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy and/or c) some CBS sitcom called "Worst Week," which may or may not...

(Photos by Luis Alvarez - AP and Kevin Lamarque - Reuters) Caps by the numbers 232: Days it has taken the Wizards to record their five most recent wins, dating to Game 5 of last season's playoffs. 82: Days it has taken the Redskins to record their five most...

Maybe you saw comedian person Danny Rouhier's video about what it's like to watch a Skins game. Now, presenting Part II: what it's like to lose to the Cincinnati Bengals with your season on the line. I'm guessing this is a pretty accurate representation, minus about 7,214 bad words....

So I was wandering around some random room in the Capitol Building today, lost amid random Wake Forest football players, when I heard one of them talking about how Phillip Fulmer was over in the rotunda. So I went to look. Indeed, there he Phillip Fulmer, shaking hands with...

This morning, I attended my first-ever college bowl practice, featuring the Wake Forest Demon Deacons on the field turf at Episcopal High in Alexandria. College bowl practices has previously been described to me as similar to those NCAA men's hoops practices before tourney games, which are open to the...

(By Streeter Lecka - Getty) If you haven't already heard, Jason Taylor was on the Junkies on WFJK 106.7 WJFK this morning and offered a fairly scathing assessment of his own season, concluding with this: "I'm a realist. You can tell me the truth, and I'm fine with that....

One of the coolest parts about the EagleBank Bowl is that it provides another dying blast of glory for old RFK, and with the pointy sort of football, to boot. There have been too many hundreds of great moments at RFK to list them all now, but I thought...

After my weeks of speculation about how many games the Redskins would be favored in this season, the answer is fairly depressing: exactly half. Vegas--via the Las Vegas Sports Consultants--had entrenched the Redskins in the top 5 of their NFL power rankings earlier this season. But now, like everyone else,...

Continuing a week-long look at the flavor of the EagleBank Bowl.... What's it like to play in a college football bowl? Ask the young men from Wake Forest, who this Saturday will set a school record by playing in their third consecutive bowl. "You ever been on a trip...

Lindsay Applebaum here with some afternoon linkage: 1) How to feel a little bit better about the Redskins' free-falling season: figure out how the enemies (Philly, Dallas and Baltimore) might plunge to their respective regular-season deaths. (Mister Irrelevant) (Some extra schadenfreude, just because: The Cowboys are so not BFFs....

Editor's note: Steinberg is on his way to greet the Wake Forest contingent, so, as part of our all-out blitz on D.C.'s brand new bowl, we present video evidence that Navy plans to field a team on Saturday:...

Since Clinton Portis's mansion was featured on MTV cribs while he still played for the Broncos, "Portis" and "stripper pole" have been joined like leg to metal. But old news doesn't make it any less irresistible. If you're a young lady and you show up at his summer pool...

(TWP file) In past Monday Night Football offseasons, Tony Kornheiser has returned from the football booth to his radio hole, offering the following morning drive choices for the typical Bog reader: The Junkies, Colin Cowherd or TK and Friends. Well, no more. Appearing on this week's On the DL...

(By Toni L. Sandys - TWP) Just last week, I wrote about how Zorn means never having to say you're sorry, and how even as pieces of the castle were crumbling around his feet, Jim Zorn remained true to his beliefs and steadfast in his confidence. Nice timing. By...

I was tempted to call this "Ovechkin and Semin's secret handshake," stealing the title from a recent message board thread. But one poster made a valid point about the Alexes' increasingly awesome celebration: "Does it qualify as 'secret' if they do it in front of everyone, and a 'handshake' if...

I had no idea how many Wizards fans watch Supernanny, the ABC show about domestic unpleasantness. Several of you wrote asking for my reaction to Mike James's appearance last week on this program, which I had never before seen. I finally watched the episode last night, and goodness, why...

Author's note: Over the next four days, I will be checking in frequently from the EagleBank Bowl and its assorted festivities. I've never been to a college bowl before, nor have I ever seen a football game in RFK, nor have I ever experienced the electricity of a pre-bowl...

Taylor, before going home. (By Toni L. Sandys - TWP) Yesterday's day off for Redskins players came at a fortuitous time, because it allowed Jason Taylor not to miss anything important when he went home to Miami for his charity ping-pong tournament. I say "home," because in this Miami...

A couple people sent me this last week, but I was in transit and out and about and forgot to post. Luckily, things haven't really changed all that much between last week and this week. Or any other week for the past 10 years....

Virginia Tech takes a dive, but isn't punished. (Photo by Matt Gentry - AP; design by Ian Oland) The biggest enemy of sporting enterprises, from teams to media outlets, is boredom. If you're in the entertainment biz, and you're stuck in a rut of rotting repetition, then what's the...

(By Andy Lyons - Getty) Sixteen times out of 17, I endorse excessively flamboyant celebrations by NFL wide receivers, even if they occasionally draw an unsportsmanlike call. They're entertaining, and harmless, and they strike back at the soulless NFL suits, and they give kids something to imitate, and they...

There are so many ways in which yesterday's loss to the Bengals constituted the low point of the 2008 Washington Redskins season. So far, anyhow. But I thought I'd offer three more reasons anyhow, since I'm feeling generous. 1) This guy above. He wore an orange bag on his...

(By Toni L. Sandys - TWP) Most post-loss Redskins locker rooms this year have been slightly less depressed (and depressing) than you might imagine, but today's was pretty close to the level of depression you'd expect. Oddly, you often get better quotes from the anguished and angry than from...

Things you will see on a Week 15 game day in Cincinnati. 1) Six Redskins fans in your hotel elevator, discussing where they're from back East and how many Redskins fans they've seen here. "In Hooters last night, it was all Redskins fans," said one chap, who, in a...